Reluctantly observing the birth of a brand new bigotry
You know, we are now eight days away from the inauguration, and, yesterday, over on the Obama 08 community, someone pointed to this article, because they "are interested in stuff about generational change
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I kinda liked Bill Clinton, to be honest. He was a baby boomer wasn't he? America did okay by him. ANd Bush? He's always struck me more of a puppet of the old order of things--a spokesperson for ancient cartels and industrialists, a dopey comic face for a traditionally faceless evil.
Also, it's that grand naivete that the problems of government are not systemic, they are the fault of the previous generation. I myself have no illusions Obama will change the world. My hope is he will restore a little dignity to the office of president. That's really it, actually.
When I was a kid, I'll be honest--we hated Boomers. It was the thing to do--throw all your angst on the generation ahead of you. I guess we were jealous that you guys got to have hope. My earliest memory of politics was Viet Nam and Nixon resigning--it never got any better.It's sad to think of a group of kids, so young and already so defeated--
I try to imagine a time when people actually thought love had the power to change the world--It must have been a lovely time.
Maybe that's why people dis the Boomers. We were jealous that for a little while, you got to have hope.
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For those of us who had it, it's a thrill to know that we can share that with those of us who are younger, because it's come back again. The fact that young people have claimed these attitudes makes me happier than you can imagine. It was never something we wanted to keep to ourselves--we always wished that we could share it. And now we feel like we can.
That is not the least reason we're happy that Obama won.
But at the same time, I'm hoping that the willingness to share will be reciprocal.
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You know--that was the strangest part of the whole election. I assumed, and I mean ASSUMED something would go wrong. Obama would be disovered in an ugly sexual tryst, linked to kiddy porn, or die in a single car accident on a lonely Texas Highway or just gunned down by a "crazed loner"
Son of a bitch if he didn't just survive, but the population was actually willing to give a black man the trust to fix things, to actually vote for HOPE. It was the strangest thing I ever felt in my whole damn life--actual hope for the future. Hope in people.
My opinion on living next to a super power generally changes depending on who is running it. When Republicans come in, I am pretty nervous about it. Their stance on health care, as an example, they MAY MAY MAY just take a shot at toppling our healthcare system just to prove medicine for profit is the best way to go. They villify people at a whim, and for a while there, it was actually seemed kind of a bad idea to travel in the States, lest some fox news-crazed hillbilly realize you are a socialist "canuckistanian" and kick the shit out of you, as per ann coulter's instructions
But in Novemember? I mentioned it once already, but I was damn PROUD to live next to you people
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In truth I think Obama won the election not necessarily just because he won on his strengths alone but because the opposition was so laughably inadequate that they lost it for their party. People were so horrified that Launchpad McCain* and Sarah Witch Hunter Palin were going to be in charge that those people who would normally be paralyzed by apathy and disinterest realized it was in their own best interests to keep those fools out of office.
* and no I don't have any fucking respect for McCain. He might have been an honorable man at some point - though it's hard to believe that if you read his book. But in his lust for the Resolute Desk he flip-flopped on every position he's ever held, supported an injust war, lied like a used car salesman, maintained the propagandistic delusion that Iraq is somehow 'better' or 'safer' despite all evidence to the contrary, ran as dirty a campaign as I've ever seen (only the illegitimate black baby thing by Bush against him comes to mind as something dirtier in the last decade) and then picked a Bible Banging Vagina as his running mate so he could roll both cynical sexism and religious extremism into it to get the PUMA and Wingnut votes and even HE said that 'Keating Five' should be carved on his tombstone.
So fuck him. I hope history remembers him as he actually was rather than this illusionary war hero he was supposed to have been back in the day.
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From what I could tell they've got more than their fair share of conservative wingnut assholes who are even more nasty, underhanded, psychotic, rude and destructive than the ones we have down here.
Like when they were going around cutting break lines on people's cars that had bumper stickers from the opposing political party - even the ones on mini vans with child car seats in them.
And who much like our own Wingnuts don't understand their own government. They were bitching about the Prime Minister and an election where they supposedly 'chose him'. But as the blogger pointed out the Prime Minister isn't an elected position - it's a position chosen by the members of parliament not the people. So the people didn't vote for him.
But they're also stuck with a 'liberal' party which has become synonymous with corruption, stupidity and an inability to have the balls to stand up for ones self.
They also have a government (which to me at least being raised American and never having experienced any other form of gov) that doesn't seem to make sense. Like how their equivalent of Congress can just be -disbanded- at the whim of their equivalent of Dick Cheney. I bet Darth gets a boner just thinking about it - No more Pelosi, no more Reid, no more Waxman... Oh yeah... ooo...(insert Penguin noises here). I realize I'm just a stupid uneducated American but that seems like legalized fascism just looking for a parking spot right there.
So they have the same problems we have but it sucks worse. Perhaps because of the smaller population the traits are more concentrated or something. I stopped reading because while at first I found it encouraging that we weren't the only country chock full of nimrods and imeciles, eventually the level of sheer dumfuckitude on both sides just became too much for me to handle. I haven't been back since.
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a curious thing about Canada I have always felt--we divide roughly into two groups of loudmouths--half pretend we are British, and half pretend we are American.
Now, it does not just divide along Libera/conservative lines or anything so simple. One big element is people panicking the new conservative leader is nothing but a clone of George Bush. We get to have big "Harper=Hitler" placrds at rallies,a nd get to compare Afghanistan with Iraq. The big dif being there actaully ARE terrorist cells in Afghanistan, and If Harper IS a clone of Bush,, he's more of a "mini me" type clone--let's face it, one of the big weights on America's shoulders, and one I feel for, is your elections dictate the course of the world for the next four years. Here? The only people punished for being so daft as to Vote Stephen Harper is us. I mean, so one less guy is going to slobberingly agree with George Bush in the press. who cares? and now that Obama is in, and our first encounter between Harper and Obama was Harper leaking memos from Obama to the press to discredit him during the Democratic primraies, I suspect our little Mini me has just had his wings clipped.
And given the gas prices dropped to where (Harper's biggest support base)Alberta's oil sands are no longer a viable neccesity, that should calm them down nicely too
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